Put me in the camp of BA J being nothing special and not worth paying a premium over AA and certainly not worth spending any sort of their surcharges to fly with them on an award. Their window seats face backwards and you still have to crawl over someone or have someone crawl over you if you are on the aisle. Also, if inflight dining is important, the later BA flight out of ORD is their "sleeper service" meaning you get a light snack after takeoff and nothing else till b-fast. The idea is you have your dinner in the lounge before the flight, which would be a nice idea if the lounge dining options were actually decent like the JFK/LHR lounges (IMHO the only two lounge locations in BAs systems worth visiting).
IB J's is alright, but still not worth it to me to connect vs. flying AA direct, assuming the price is the same. I have not flown AB J so I can't comment on them. I also would not take VS J over AA, but only for the fact that I want the AA EQM and EQP. If those aren't important, take VS, however, if my only options were taking BA or VS, I would take VS and forego any points on AA.
Also, if you are willing to connect, why not fly ORD-DFW-LHR or ORD-MIA-LHR to connect to the 77W. The 77W J beats BA/IB IMHO and you'll have a longer flight to sleep and earn more miles.
Last edited by umaa83; Apr 30, 2014 at 9:21 am